


where we are

by you_idjits



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Season/Series 10, not an integral part of the story, only mentioned in passing though, tw panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3748144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_idjits/pseuds/you_idjits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas build a blanket fort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where we are

Cas shows up outside the Bunker in the middle of an afternoon on a Tuesday. It’s one of those drizzly Kansas days when everything is the color of dishwater, even Cas. Dean answers the door and there he stands, coat disheveled, hair damp, smile faint.

“Can I come in?”

Dean swallows. He knocks his knuckles against the doorframe. “Yeah. Yeah, hey.”

 Cas pushes past him, their shoulders brushing. “How are you?”

“How am– how am I? Dude, Cas, you look like crap. What’s going on?”

Cas ignores him. He plods down the stairs and Dean stumbles to follow.

“Sam’s on a grocery run, but I can call him if you need to, we can–”

“It’s fine,” Cas says. “I’m fine.”

Dean looks at him, at the worry lines in his forehead and the set of his shoulders. “What do you need?”

“You,” Cas says.

There are a lot of things Dean wants to say. Things he has wanted to say for years. Now is not the time. Dean has the Mark and Cas is apparently, like, dying or whatever. Dean can almost see it, too, the way Cas is losing his grace. He looks like a car running on fumes.

Dean is good with cars. He can take care of cars. He doesn’t know what to do with this.

“I’m just tired,” Cas says.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“I thought if I came here – to you and Sam – I thought it might help. Somehow.” He slumps down in a chair. Dean thinks about sitting next to him, but doesn’t.

“Cas,” he sighs, “come on. I’m a mess. You don’t want to be here. Not right now. ‘S like watching a car wreck in slow motion.”

Cas’s eyes flick down to the curve of his arm, where the Mark lies dormant.

“Let me– let me make you something to eat. Okay? Then you should probably, that is, you should probably go. Cas, look. You know I want you here.”

Cas looks up at him, somehow surprised by that. “You do?”

“Yeah, I–” Dean falters. “Of course I do. It’s just. Not right now. Not with me, and the, and the Mark.” He rubs at his face with both hands. “Come on. I’ll make you some food, something for the road.”

Cas stands up. “I think I need to be sleeping again, like a human. I can’t do that on the road.”

Dean closes his eyes. He’s too sober for this. “Fine. Sure. You can take a nap or something. Come on.”

So instead of going to the kitchen, they go towards the bedrooms. Dean reaches for the door to an empty room, but hesitates. “My room,” he says, swallowing, “my room has a really good mattress. Memory foam. If you want.”

“Okay,” Cas says. He follows Dean across the hall, and sits down on the edge of Dean’s bed. He looks up at Dean, who hovers in the doorway. “Dean, I–”

“You should take off your shoes,” Dean says, and he crosses to kneel at Cas’s feet. He tries to undo the laces, but his hands feel fuzzy, blunt, useless. They always feel that way these days, without a weapon in them. He curses, digging his fingernails into the knot until it loosens.

“I can do that myself,” Cas says.

“It’s fine,” Dean says. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this, any of this. Cas is watching him carefully.

“Dean,” Cas says. “Dean, stop.”

Dean stills his hands. He sits back on his heels. There’s an unexpected lump in his throat and he doesn’t know why. Cas is sitting there, looking ridiculous, wearing only one shoe. Dean feels like he’s missing something.

“It’s just so overwhelming sometimes,” Cas says. “All of it. The more human I am, the louder everything else becomes.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, staring at Cas’s sock – black, with a hole in the toe. “I know what you mean. When I was a kid I used to get these. Uh. These panic attacks, or whatever. When Dad was gone and the money was low and Sam was hungry and I didn’t know what to do. Or whatever. Everything would get loud and intense and I’d just…” He shakes his head.

“You’d what?”

“I’d make a blanket fort.” Dean smiles softly at the memory. He closes his eyes and sees it, the cheap white sheets of a motel bed spread high and wide over his head.

“Excuse me?” Cas asks.

“You know. A blanket fort.” He looks up at Cas, at the furrow in his brow. “Come on, you’ve never– I mean, you must have–”

“What is a… blanket fort?”

“Oh my God,” Dean says. “We have to make a blanket fort.”

So Dean gets Cas to his feet and shows him the ropes – how to peel the sheets from the bed, how to prop up the pillows and the mattress just right. “It’s better if you have two beds and you can set up in-between,” he explains, “but we’ll make do.” He knots sheets to his dresser and his bookshelf, pulling the blankets taut over Cas’s head. Cas looks vaguely lost by it all, standing in the middle of the room watching Dean at work.

“This makes you happy,” he says, with certainty, like he’s discovered something important.

Dean stops. He glances at Cas and licks his lips. “Well, yeah,” he says. “It’s just. It’s a blanket fort, man.”

There’s just enough space for the two of them. They sit cross-legged on the floor of Dean’s bedroom, backs against the bedframe, shoulders pressed together.

“I don’t get it,” Cas says, once everything’s settled.

“Trust me. Just wait.”

So they sit, and Dean listens to Cas’s breathing, and all the light around them is pure.

“Oh,” Cas says, “I get it.”

It’s quiet. Dean and Cas are here together in Dean’s safe space, where it’s quiet. Dean’s heart beats steady in his chest. Cas’s hand is curled on his knee, almost like an invitation, almost like Dean could reach out and take it.

“I wish I could stay,” Cas says. “I really, really wish that.”

Dean keeps staring at Cas’s open hand. “Cas… what if you… What if you gave up the grace?”

Cas turns his head. With such a small space, it feels like an intimate gesture. Cas is so close his lips almost brush Dean’s cheek. He looks at Dean with those wide blue eyes and says, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you gave up the grace, you’d become human, right? That wouldn’t be so bad. Right?”

“You’re asking me to–”

“Look, it’d be different than last time. No more Gadreel, no more lying. You could– stay. For real.”

“In the Bunker? I don’t have a room, or a bed.”

Dean swallows. This is a safe space. He is sitting next to his best friend in a blanket fort. “Well, you could share with me. If you want.”

Cas stops breathing. Dean looks at his hand, on his knee, as it curls into a fist, then uncurls. “Dean?”

“I want you here, man. All the goddamn time.” Dean closes his eyes. “I’m scared of the Mark and what it could do to me, what I could do to you. But I want you here. You’re not at your best, and I’m at my worst, and it’ll never work, but I want it to. Christ, Cas, I want it to.”

Cas reaches for Dean’s hand. He holds it with certainty, like he’s discovered something important.

Dean turns and kisses him. It’s so easy, because Cas is already there. Dean turns and kisses him and it’s imperfect, but it’s happening. Dean turns and kisses him and Cas kisses back like he’s been waiting for it a long time, and maybe he has, maybe they both have.

Then it’s over. Dean turns away to catch his breath, and Cas kisses the spot below his ear. He doesn’t say anything, and Dean is glad for it, because any words they could say would cheapen this, somehow. The white sheets bow in above their heads. Everything feels close and immediate. They are invincible here.

Dean takes a breath and looks down at Cas’s hand in his. His hands don’t feel so useless anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on [tumblr](http://shootingstarcas.tumblr.com/post/116420473506/where-we-are-1-3k-dean-and-cas-build-a-blanket).  
> Thanks to Onja and Tasha for betaing.  
> Title comes from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBkkplOiSjQ).  
> 


End file.
